New Analysis Shows Johns Hopkins Asthma “Study” was Junk Science

Last July anti-frackers at the Johns Hopkins-Bloomberg School of Public Health expelled another bought-and-paid-for (by anti-drillers) “study” that implies the presence of fracking in Pennsylvania leads to causing, or making worse, asthma attacks (see Sham “Study” from Johns Hopkins Says Fracking Makes Athsma Worse). The study, “Association Between Unconventional Natural Gas Development in the Marcellus Shale and Asthma Exacerbations,” evaluated thousands of health records from the Geisinger Clinic in PA, looking for patterns between people showing up with asthmatic symptoms and correlating it to how close they live to shale wells being drilled. As we pointed out at the time, “The incredible thing about this latest run at smearing the miracle of fracking is this: the authors (most of them students) admit in their own study they only have theories, no proof that ties fracking to asthma.” At the time, Energy in Depth noted it seemed a bit odd that the researchers didn’t include a county by county comparison, to illustrate how asthma got worse in counties with drilling as opposed to those without. Now we know why. EID has done its own analysis, using PA Dept. of Health data, that shows asthma episodes in counties with the most shale drilling went DOWN, not up! Which blows the door right off the Johns Hopkins “study”…